Jag är kär i våra minnen

Without a map. Without a GSP. Without a compass. Without Roger telling us the way. We made it. All by ourselves. 

What I am trying to say is that we drove to San Marcos this monday, we did not get lost.  We found the way and everything was perfectly fine! Lisa is a bit aggressive on the gas though. The tires are screaming everytime she is pushing it. And she has no patience by the stopsignals what so ever: "okej ITS GREEN NOW!!! What are you waiting for?! You don't even have any gears, push the GAS!!! DRIVE!"

Anyway, we went the the biggest outlet mall I have ever seen, and we spent the whole day running around there. We wanted to buy something for Rita and Roger, so we got Rita som jewellery from her favourite store Chicos. And we wanted to buy a shirt for Roger, so we went to Lacoste. We had some trouble deciding which size he was, so I made a call to Rita and asked if the was a Large. She said "Oh no honey, he is an XL, at least". Later we went to see a movie, Body of lies. I bet it is a good movie, if you understand it...

Yesterday, Lisa and I drove downtown and we almost crashed the car! Or we didn't, but another car were very close to hit us. We went to my favourite store, Anthropoligie, had mexican lunch at whole foods. We drove to Guadaloupe to do some shopping and take a walk around the campus. The sun was shining and it was raining. MISSION OF YESTERDAY: FIND THE WAY TO MOMA, museum of modern art.  We drove down on Lamar, we drove down on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th street. We have been on all the streets up to 26th. Now to the fun part: I knew where it was. I knew it all the time. But Lisa said "I don't trust you, because you have no idea of where we are anyway". And guess who was right - I was!

We went to Jo's at congresse for some chocolate-chip-cookies, and a man in his 50s asked me "can I buy you a margarita?" I said big nono. When we got home, Lisa and I wnt to the grocery store, and this man walked out on street, towards the car! He did not turn or anything, Lisa had to stop the car. He looked very suicidal. We cooked very al dente lasagna to the americans, it was aldente because people obviously don't cook in this country, and we could not find any cheese sauce. We played yahtzee for two hours, and Lisa won.













We better have some breakfast now, we are having lunch in cityhall today, and later we are going to Barton Creek mall.

See you soon, my friends. Hardworking good friend. That means that you are good friends, working hard.

I have to start with telling you this: yesterday, we did NOT get lost! I have my own theory of why. We printed a map to Barton Creek square, and the map was showing the wrong directions, which we noticed, then all of a sudden - we reached Barton Creek square. So the conclusion is, when we have a correct map, we will get lost, and when we have an incorrect map, we will find the way!

We have visited every class at Barton Hills, except for the 5th and 6th grade. It is such a difference between this school and the schools at home. We asked if the teachers thought 30 minutes of recess a day were enough (schoolday for all grades are from 7.45-14.40 with 30 minutes recess), and they said no. They also said that the kids are not really supposed to have any recess at all, but the teacher found it necessary to have 30 minutes. (Don't say...) We feel so bad for the children, they can't concentrate for so many hours without breaks.
 
We have spent this afternoon in the kindergarten, which was wonderful! They had the most creative teacher, she had so much energy. The kids were sweet and polite, I really admire them for their hard work. They are only five, and they HAVE to learn to read in kindergarten. We asked the teacher, what happens if they don't learn to read, and she just looked at us and said "they have to. They just have to learn to read, I am against it but no one asked for my opinion".

The sweetest boy with curly hair came up to me and said, "I have seen you. I already know you." And later I helped some kids to make halloween paintings while I listened to this sweet conversation between him and Lisa.
The boy with curly hair: I know you. I have seen you on TV
Lisa: Oh really... which channel?
The boy with curl hair: I don't remember, but I have seen you on TV many times.

Lisa Berggren is now very proud of beeing a celebrity. When I remind her of the fact that she has not been on TV, she is just ignoring me..

We had dinner at Nordstroms yesterday, strawberries and fries was a strange combination


Lisa is ordering big portions, and everyone says "hope you're hungry miss". Well, she is hungry allright...


Outside the school


To get some peace and quiet, we are eating lunch outside...


This is one of Americas biggest issues - too much to eat


And this is probably another... Interesting to visit though


I will write tomorrow, tomorrow is friday, which means vacation until next saturday when we are going home!

Take care!

Lisa and I have been exploring the neighbourhood around Jorwoods this night. We walked for 40 minutes, and didn't meet anyone. Except for two teenagers who were acting drunk. So obviously, people don't walk here. (That's a pitty, because they really need to...)  And the pavements were all covered by grass because no one is using them.

After the first day at school, we were exhausted. It was really noisy and the children were talking to eachother all the time, not like we are used to at all. But it worked for them, they did what they were supposed to do while they were talking. We didn't hear the teacher yell at someone for all day, not even once. This school, Barton Hills Elementry has got the nicest staff, except for the principal, which we found very strange. She was polite and kind to everyone but us, she said Hello and nothing more. We stayed in a third grade today, with a sweet teacher called Ms J. Ms J had a teacher student who held a mathlesson which we were observing. They were doing subtraction, and I don't think that she was really paying attention because she didn't notice when the pupils got the wrong answers. They had to correct her. Very strange indeed.
Ms J said that the kids will talk about the history of Texas in the fourth grade, and I asked her if they teach any other history than the american one, and they didn't. She said that if I would ask anyone to point out Asia on the map, they could not do it. They have no idea of how the worldmap is looking, they don't know that there's a world outside the states. And at home, Roger said "Well, if y'all ask american kids where Sweden is, they would probably answer; in which part of texas is Sweden?" And I agree. They probably would.

Bedtime! Hope we get a good nights sleep, we need it. To survive another day at Barton Hills...

See you later aligator!

Yesterday was a long long long day. Three differents flights that took forever. But I felt better after some gintonic, and the sex and the city movie (which we watched THREE times...) When we landed, an american was screaming about transfer to the next flight, and I was all excited because he was so american. We love the states. We had to wait for a very long time to get through the pass control, and there was a japaneese lady who really was in a hurry. I don't think that she had heard of this new thing, I think it's called standing in line, waiting for your turn?

Anyway, in Washington we found a starbucks and then everyting was fine. When we landed in Austin, we where all alone on the airport, felt wierd. Rita and Roger picked us up, and we went to a mexican restaurand to have some delicious food! We saw Peter Forsberg yesterday btw. I will write more later, we're going to Austin downtown now!

It's really HOT in Austin. We have already seen one cowboy and a hillbilly!